When you are established in faith, you can truly know God and his ways.

In the Fall of 2012 I was working full-time for a publisher and part-time as pastor of the church I still serve. One day my supervisor called me to his office and informed me that the company was laying off a large segment of its work force due to financial deficits and that I was one of those losing his job.

I had never experienced that before. You hear stories of people losing jobs and being devastated, and you wonder what you would do if it happened to you. As my supervisor explained the process of ending my employment and as I walked back to my office, my thoughts and emotional reaction surprised me. Although suddenly confronted with a long list of uncertainties and losses, my heart was calm. I was disappointed, sure, but not afraid. I felt confident that God was in charge, that he would provide for me and my wife, and that we were beginning an exciting new chapter.

Certainly I have not always been so assured. I recall a decade prior to this layoff driving for several hours with a friend to a meeting, and as the conversation moved to plans for the future, I admitted to my sense of financial insecurity. In other words, I was afraid and told him so. I did not see how I would have enough money for old age. For years I lived with foreboding about this.

Why? Because I did not adequately know God. Yes, I was a regenerated Christian, a devoted follower of Christ, a pastor. I knew God in the sense that I was born again and knew the Bible well and understood many truths about God accurately. But I did not know him well enough to trust what he repeatedly promised in Scripture about providing for my needs.

Faith and knowledge

To the extent that we do not really believe what the Scripture says, we do not know him. True knowledge of God depends on faith. One can articulate the most intricate aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity yet find it difficult to joyfully say, “God loves me.”

This is why the subject of faith is so important for Christians who want to know God better. Our knowledge of God cannot exceed our faith. The quest to know God is far more about increasing faith than about adding theological information and answering our questions.

What Jesus expected

As you read the Gospels, have you ever noticed what Jesus repeatedly called attention to as he engaged with his disciples and strangers? He certainly talked a lot about love, obedience, righteousness, and truth. Nevertheless, though I have not tallied the occurrences, it seems to me he talked most about faith and unbelief. He regularly either commended people for their faith or admonished them for doubt. He expected people to have what we would classify as enormous faith. And he marveled when his disciples were afraid of drowning in a momentous tempest. He admonished them when they worried about going hungry in the desert although they had just two loaves of bread and a couple of fish and a crowd of 5,000 to feed. He bypassed others who doubted he could heal the sick and demon-afflicted.

Moreover, he taught things about faith that are, well, unbelievable. He said true believers would with a word be able to move mountains, perform miracles, replant trees in the sea, and receive whatever they ask. Not only can God do amazing things, so can we.

God’s will

This stretches one’s faith to the breaking point. Some Christians respond by reaching for that level of faith, though it is by no means easy (that is, unless you become as a child [Mark 10:15]) and it raises many questions. Others do not know what to do with these teachings. They might explain them away, regarding Christians who pursue such faith as unwise or unhinged, asking for trouble and disillusionment. Or they might accept the teachings, but shake their heads and regard them as personally unattainable. Some might say these teachings of Jesus are for those who have the special gift of faith.

Based on my reading of the Gospels, I do not think Jesus would say that. He expected big faith from everyone. Moreover, to limit strong faith to a spiritual elite is to relegate most Christians to a stunted knowledge of God, as described above, and the fear, insecurity, instability, weakness, and defeat that comes with it.

No, Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). That is an imperative. Thus that is his will.

Scripture warns against being double-minded, saying to one who asks for wisdom, “Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6–8, ESV).

Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Romans 14:23 says, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (NIV). The RSV says, “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.”

The trouble with accepting unbelief

We cannot experience the Christian life described in the Bible without faith in what God says. So the idea that we should tolerate in ourselves an unbelief of anything God says in his Word is simply wrong. We must not be satisfied with anything less than believing all he says. Unbelief insults God, implying that he is not truthful, cannot be trusted, and is not Almighty. Being content with unbelief requires resisting Jesus, who is the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Therefore we must not rationalize and excuse our own unbelief. Unbelief will creep and grow. It is Satan’s foot in the door. It is an invitation to the unmanageable power of fear and the ruin that accompanies it.

Established in faith

So we need to be established in faith.

To establish means to put on a firm basis, to make stable or permanent.

I live on the 20^th floor of a high-rise. I have watched many high-rises built around us. Before the first floor is built, I have seen dozens of holes drilled deep in the soil and then filled with concrete. I have seen a quarter million tons of concrete, steel, and glass go into a tower one floor at a time. A high-rise is as established as a man-made building can be. It is heavy and has a big footprint. It is anchored to the ground with deep underground columns. A puff of wind will not knock it over, nor will a normal trembling in the earth crack it to pieces.

To establish something is to position it to endure. It is in balance, not teetering. It is grounded, not suspended in midair. It has a foundation. It is built on rock, not sand. It is consistent, not wavering. It is single-minded, not double-minded.

The 20 truths this series highlights will bring you to this place of established faith. Believing these 20 truths will make you an immovable, spiritual rock. And most importantly, you will know God as he is. You will know him in your experience, not just intellectually. And your Christian life will work the way the Bible describes.

How the Christian life works

The Bible describes the life of a Christian as one marked by peace and joy even in the midst of conflict; by strength abounding even in our weaknesses; by answered prayer even though for a long time we walk by faith and not by sight.

The Christian life does not work as the Bible describes without faith, without faith in everything the Bible promises, without faith in the worldview the Bible describes—a worldview in which God is almighty and responsive to the prayers of those who believe. That is not the worldview of most people in educated, Western cultures, for whom the idea of a God who can do miracles is inconceivable. If you want to know and experience God, you must abandon that worldview and fully adopt what the Bible says about God and his ways with us.

Each of these 20 truths plays a crucial role in the superstructure of established faith, so do not miss a week. You will learn to call these truths to mind before you pray and then pray with confidence. When you sense fear and unbelief slipping into your soul, you will call these truths to mind, and they will reestablish you in immovable confidence. You will learn to live all day, every day, established in faith—and thus knowing God better than ever before.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

Do you have an impossible job?

Last night a woman in our church told how God had just given her success on a large, important project at work.

She is a website architect working for a big downtown bank that hired her specifically to upgrade their site’s interface for those with disabilities.

One impossible job

But everyone with whom she directly worked told her: You can’t do this. You will fail. You don’t have the necessary intelligence for this.

Indeed, she agreed. She didn’t know how to do it.

No one knew how to do what the bank was asking. One technician told her he could not do in a year even part of what the company was asking to be done in six months. These were uncharted waters.

She feared what would happen if she failed. That she would lose her job and pay. That she would have to move away.

Unceasing prayer

So she called out to God. All day long, every day, she prayed fervently over every detail, every web page, every line of code. She literally wept and prayed. She felt small and vulnerable.

But she also had fierce conviction that God was great enough to help her with an impossible job. She kept crying out to God day after day, planning functionalities, writing code, telling her team of developers what to do. She worked hard. Day after day she received wisdom for one piece of the project after another. Every step and idea was a discovery.

And so, week after week, one piece, one page, one functionality of the website after another came together. Months passed and the progress continued. The hand of God was upon her, and he blessed her entire team.

Great success

With the deadline approaching they were ready to release their work. They were ready to go live with approximately eighty new web pages of cutting edge technology.

On the day of release they discovered one minor problem. Just one easily fixed bug. But everything else worked flawlessly.

Last night our website architect told this story and enthusiastically gave God all the glory.

Divine wisdom for impossible jobs

As she spoke, a Scripture came to my mind, and when she finished I read it.

The story is about a young man whom a pagan king recruited to serve in his court. For three years he received training in the language, literature, and wisdom of that culture. At the end of that period, he Daniel and three Hebrew friends were brought before the king for a final exam.

“And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom” (Daniel 1:20).

Proverbs 2:6 says, “The LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

2 Timothy 2:7 says, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”

Do you need to be a pastor to know God and his ways, to experience God working at your right hand?

No, you just need to have work to do. You need to sense your need of God’s help, to know that you can’t do anything apart from him. And you need to cry out to him with faith continually. To work hard. And then watch God work. In the end you will give him glory.